Adding Charts to a SSRS Report (Report Builder)

Adding charts to a report

Charts add visual appeal to a report and can quickly elevate a report from looking just like a spreadsheet of data to powerful tool for monitoring performance over time, or for highlighting areas of concern in a business.

In this Try it, you will return to the Summary Sales report and add a column chart to show sales over the selected year.

THE CHART DATA PANEL, OPENED WITH A SINGLE CLICK ON THE CHART

Try it

1. Open the Summary Sales report

2. Move the table over to the left side of the design surface, so that there is plenty of room for the chart on the right.

3. From the toolbox, drag a chart onto the design surface and position it to the right of the table.

4. When you finish dragging the chart, the Select Chart Type window opens. Select the first type of column chart and click OK.

7. In the same way, use the next + button to select Month as the category. This time, you will be able to go directly to Month, as the SalesSummary dataset was selected in the last step.

8. Select the Month category in the Chart Data / Categories panel and edit the label property. Do this by either clicking on the small down arrow to the right of the Month category, or just find the label property in the Properties window on the right of the screen.

9. Add the MonthName function to the label property so that it becomes an expression that displays the name of the month instead of the number. (Use the Expression editor for this)

10. The expression should be: =MonthName(Fields!Month.Value)

11. Edit the chart and axis titles by clicking on them and typing something descriptive. If you’re feeling adventurous, see if you can work out how to get the selected year into the chart title (hint: use an expression and select a parameter)